The Capital Market, Interest, and Profits

Capital
This is one of the most important and useful areas of microeconomics that we can master. 3 By understanding the nature of capital markets, we can answer questions that have enormous application to both our personal and professional lives.
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On A Personal Level
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We can answer questions like
– Should I rent or buy a home now? – Should I quit my job to go back to school for a business or law degree? – Should I buy that expensive, energy-efficient refrigerator or pop for the cheaper model? – And should I invest in a portfolio of highrisk, high-technology stocks or settle for some safer, tax-free municipal bonds?
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At A Professional Level
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Capital analysis is equally crucial and can help business executives answer questions like:
– Should I invest in new plant and equipment? – Should I expand my firm? – And how much inventory should I maintain?

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Real and Financial Capital
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Let’s start by distinguishing between real capital – the bricks and mortar and machines.
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Financial capital – the stocks and bonds and other loanable funds -- used to finance real capital.
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3 Categories of Capital Goods
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Structures such as factories and homes.

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Consumer durable goods such as automobiles and producer durable equipment like machine tools and computers.
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Inventories and includes things like cars in dealers' lots.
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Capital Goods Markets

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Allocating Capital
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Should a country devote its investment resources to heavy manufacturing like steel or to information technologies like the Internet?

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What Should They Do?
Should Intel build a $4 billion factory to produce the next generation of microprocessors? 3 Should farmer Jones, hoping to improve his record-keeping, buy a customized accounting program or make do with one of the popular varieties available for around $100? 3 This is where interest rates and the rate of return to capital comes in.
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Capital Investment
When we invest in capital, we are laying out money today to obtain a return in the future. 3 In deciding upon the best investment to make, we need to know how much the money we will use is going to cost us.
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– That’s the interest rate.
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We also need to know how much the investment will earn – that’s the rate of return.
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The Interest Rate
The price paid for the use of loanable funds, where the term loanable funds is used to describe funds that are available for borrowing. 3 In particular, the interest rate is the amount of money that must be paid for the use of one dollar of loanable funds for a year.
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Typically A Percent
Because it is paid in kind, interest is typically stated as a percentage of the amount of money borrowed rather than as an absolute amount. 3 It is less clumsy to say that interest is 12 percent annually then that interest is "$120 per year per $1000."
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An Easy Comparison
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Furthermore, stating interest as a percentage makes it easy to compare interest paid on loans of different absolute amounts.
– For example, by expressing interest as a percentage, we can immediately compare an interest payment of, say, $432 per year per $2880 and one of $1800 per year per $12,000.

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Both interest payments are 15 percent -- which is not obvious from the absolute figures.

The Rate of Return on Capital
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Is the additional revenue that a firm can earn from its employment of new capital. This additional revenue is usually measured as a percentage rate per unit of time -- the annual net return per dollar of invested capital -- which is why it is called the rate of return on capital.
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An Example
Say the company buys a used Ford for $10,000 and then rents it out for $2,500 per year. 3 After calculating all the expenses associated with owning the car such as maintenance, insurance, and appreciation, and ignoring any changing car prices, Ugly Duckling earns a net rental of $1200 each year. 3 So what is the rate of return?
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Twelve Percent
We calculate that simply by dividing the net rental of $1200 per year by the initial investment outlay for the Ford of $10,000. 3 And note that the rate of return is a pure number per unit of time. 3 That is, it has the following form: dollars per period divided by dollars.
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Another Example
Suppose I buy a bottle of grape juice for $10 and then sell it a year later as wine for $11. 3 What is my rate of return on this investment assuming that I have no other expenses?
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That’s Right
3 10 percent per year or $1/$10.

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Depreciation
3 It’s a very, very important concept

in the analysis of capital.

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Flow Versus Stock
Both investment and depreciation are flow concepts, meaning that they are measured per unit of time. 3 This is in contrast to capital which is a stock concept, meaning that capital is measured at a given point in time.
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Depreciation
An estimate of the loss in the dollar value of a capital good due to obsolescence or wear and tear during a period of time. 3 Corporations are allowed to treat depreciation as an expense on their taxes just like other expenses like labor costs and raw materials.
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Depreciation and Investment
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When depreciation over a period of time exceeds investment over the same period of time, the capital stock will decrease whereas if investment exceeds depreciation, the capital stock will increase.

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Interacting Variables
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Now that we understand both the interest rate and the rate of return, let’s next come to understand how the interaction of these two variables determine investment decisions in a market economy.

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The Theory of Loanable Funds
In a nutshell, we are about to see that firms will demand loanable funds to invest in new projects so long as the rate of return on capital is greater than or equal to the interest rate paid on funds borrowed. 3 Let me demonstrate this for you by first introducing the theory of loanable funds.
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The theory of loanable funds is based on the assumption that households supply funds for investment by abstaining from consumption and accumulating savings over time.

r The real interest rate

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8%
It is businesses that demand loanable funds to build new plants or warehouses or to purchase machines and equipment. Why do you think this curve is downward sloping?

The upward sloping supply curve of loanable funds reflects the idea that households prefer present consumption to future consumption and must be paid an interest rate “bribe” to induce them to save rather than consume.

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I* Amount of investment
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Other Things Equal
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There will be more potential investments that will be profitable at lower interest rates than at higher interest rates.
In that example, the company bought a used Ford for $10,000, earned a net rental of $1,200, and wound up with a 12% rate of return on its investment.
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Suppose
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The company wants to borrow some money from the market for loanable funds to buy an identical used Ford and it projects an identical rate of return on its investment. If the interest rate is 10 percent, it will surely borrow the money because the rate of return that it can earn using the funds exceeds that. However, suppose the interest rate is 15 percent. What will it do?
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It Won’t Borrow Money
It therefore won’t make the new investment. 3 This example not only shows us why the demand curve for loanable funds is downward sloping. 3 It also helps explain equilibrium in the market where the supply of funds equals the demand for funds.
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r The real interest rate
10% 8%

The supply of funds would exceed the demand for funds because not enough businesses could find investments capable of generating at least a 10% rate of return.

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D I* Amount of investment
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r The real interest rate
10% 8%

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There would be plenty of businesses demanding the funds. However, there wouldn’t be enough households willing to forego present consumption to meet the demand.

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D I* Amount of investment
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Two Functions for the Market Interest Rate
It rations out society’s scarce supply of capital goods for the uses that have the highest rates of return. 3 It induces people to sacrifice current consumption in order to increase the stock of capital.
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Shifts in Demand and Supply
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How might events in the real world cause the demand and supply curves to shift and thereby change the interest rate and the economy’s level of investment?

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If Social Security Is Expanded
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What is this likely to do to the supply curve for loanable funds and the market rate of interest?

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S’ r The real interest rate
r** 8%

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D I* I*** I** Amount of investment
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What About the Supply Side?
Suppose the economy had been in a deep recession, but now is moving towards full employment. 3 What do you think will happen to the interest rate and why?
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As the economy improves, more businesses are likely to increase their investment in new plant and equipment. This will shift out the demand curve and increase the interest rate.

r The real interest rate
r** 8%

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D’ D I* I** Amount of investment
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The Investment Decision
In the example above, we made it easy to evaluate the firm’s investment decision. 3 We made it easy by limiting the investment horizon to only one year.
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– That is, we invested in something at the beginning of the year and got our return at the end of the year.

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Most Investments Last Longer
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But that’s a pretty artificial example because most investments last more than one year – from a few years for a new computer or some office furniture to 30 to 40 years for an electric power plant and more than 50 years for a big skyscraper.

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Our Question
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How do you evaluate an investment when your capital outlay occurs today but the benefits from that investment come in the form of a revenue stream over many years?

Net Present Value
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In order to answer this question we have to introduce one of the most important concepts in economics: net present value. And before I explain this concept, let me point out that net present value goes by various other names, including present discounted value or just plain present value.
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Net Present Value
It is defined as the dollar value today of a stream of income over time. 3 It is measured by calculating how much money invested today would be needed, at the going interest rate, to generate the asset’s future stream of receipts. 3 Let's give this definition some real world context so we can really wrap our minds around it.
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An Example
Suppose you own an apartment building which generates rental payments of $10,000 per month from your tenants. 3 But suppose further that your tenants are always calling you up in the middle of the night to complain about a leaky faucet or a blocked toilet or a broken waste disposal. disposal
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You Sell The Building
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But how much should you sell it for? More specifically, what lump sum of money today would make you at least as well off as that stream of rental payments that you would get over the life of the building?

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A Simple Example
Suppose somebody offers to sell you a bottle of wine that matures in exactly one year and the wine can be sold for $11 at the end of the year. 3 Assuming that the market interest rate is 10 percent per year, what is the present value of the wine -- that is, how much would you pay for the wine today?
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The Most You Would Pay
Is $10 because 10 dollars invested today at the 10% market rate of interest would yield you $11 at the end of the year. 3 In other words, the present value of next year’s eleven-dollar wine today is $10.
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Present Value for Perpetuities
Okay, that’s an example for only a one-year investment. 3 Now, let's go to the other extreme by examining what's called a perpetuity.
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A perpetuity is an asset like land that lasts forever and pays a certain amount of dollars per year from now to eternity. 3 So how would you evaluate a 46 Lesson Ten part 1
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A Simple Formula
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V=N/i
– V equals the present value of the land. – N is the permanent annual receipts from the land. – i is the interest rate in decimal terms.

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So if the interest rate is five percent per year and the perpetuity yields 100 dollars a year, what would be the net present value of the perpetuity?
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The Answer
3 Is $2000 or simply $100 divided by

0.05.

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Selling the Apartment Building
We can use this formula for a perpetuity to determine what the selling price of our hypothetical apartment building should be. 3 But first we have to make some further assumptions.
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Assume
The prevailing interest rate is 5%. 3 After expenses, our monthly rental income of $10,000 is reduced to $5,000, or $60,000 for the year. 3 Based on that net rental income and assuming that the building will last forever, what is the least amount of money that we should sell the building for?
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The Selling Price
Should be at least $1.2 million, which is found simply by dividing $60,000 by the interest rate. 3 What would the selling price be if the interest rate were 10%?
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